popping tags
by Ladyfnick
Summary: Sweaters are basically communal items, right? Lance has some unusual habits when it comes to other peoples things. In that he keeps accidentally stealing them. Whoops? Keith doesn't have that excuse. shklance.
1. Chapter 1

Keith won't admit it upon pain of death, but being alone for that year out in the desert sort of... well he doesn't like being alone as much as he used to, was probably the simplest way of putting it.

Before, he had preferred to spend the majority of his time on his own. People were frankly baffling at best and obnoxious at worst. Being alone was always preferable. The worst thing about being a pilot at the Garrison had been having to always work with a team. No one had ever tried hard enough, been focused enough, or had been determined enough in Keith's mind. Every mechanic and navcom had always been a disappointment. And even when it hadn't been a failure, Keith had always left simulation flights wishing he could just work alone. Before he'd graduated out, Shiro had always been gently exasperated with him, trying to encourage Keith to be a little more patient with the other students. Shiro hadn't gotten it: everyone always tried their hardest when they were paired with him. With Keith it felt like everyone was spending half their time keeping their eye on him instead of doing their job.

Then Keith got kicked out of the Garrison and spent the better part of a year in the desert. He'd felt like he was going insane when he'd been at the academy. In the desert it felt like he was still going insane, but for different reasons. The desert was dead and empty, just him and a bunch of rocks and an endless, irritating supply of sand.

The first week he had relished in the quiet and the space alone, after years of living in the pockets of dozens of other students.

The second week he hadn't liked it as much, but he'd still found things to enjoy- like getting hot water before it was used up, not being teased for how much time he spent on training, the bathroom not being a complete sty.

But by the third week, whenever he couldn't bring himself to do any more research or even to train, he found himself pacing. Through his little cabin, outside around the building in endless laps, and eventually even rambling, directionless paths that carved their way through the barren wilderness.

One night, when he'd heard coyotes or some other type of desert predator and knew it wasn't safe to wander outside in the dark, he'd dug aimlessly through his few belongings, not quite sure what he was looking for. At the bottom of a box of clothing too heavy to be needed often in the desert, Keith had found Shiro's sweater.

He'd forgotten he'd had it.

One night Shiro had dragged Keith out to a restaurant to meet Samuel Holt, since Keith had never been formally introduced to the man Shiro would be spending several months in space with. It had been an unseasonably cold night and Shiro had brought a spare sweater for Keith, knowing his habit of forgetting to check the weather and being too stubborn to admit he was cold.

Begrudgingly, Keith had deigned to borrow it. He had meant to return it to Shiro, but never had gotten around to it before the Kerberos mission started. He'd always assumed there would be time to give it back when Shiro returned.

Keith pressed it to his face, inhaling deeply. Keith didn't think people smelled altogether that different from each other, but Shiro's sweater had smelled like a fancier laundry detergent than Keith ever bought and, more faintly, a little like Shiro's preferred brand of aftershave.

After that night, whenever he felt like he was about to vibrate out of his own skin in the desert alone, Keith would put on Shiro's sweater. Only a week after re-discovering it, the Shiro-smell of it faded, and it just smelled like all of Keith's other clothing. Keith tried to convince himself the reason he switched laundry detergents was because he liked the smell, and not because he sometimes would try to pretend the sweater had only been forgotten in his possession days previous, not months.

Keith wasn't very good at lying to himself.

* * *

Lance came from a huge family. Grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and even farther flung relatives orbited in and out of Lance's life ever since he could remember, even when he moved out to become a pilot when he was twelve. Belongings were less set in stone personal possessions, and more of a communal thing with his family. Unless you kept it in your room and/or licked it, it was almost guaranteed to be loaned to someone.

In the winter whenever he went anywhere, Lance would just grab the first coat and boots he founds, rather than trying to track down wherever his own things had ended up. It was just how his family did things.

It was strange, living in the dorms. His own things were almost always where he left them, or neatly set aside nearby if his roommate had needed to get at something and had needed to move whatever clothing Lance had left lying in the way.

His clothing only ever smelled like his own laundry soap, and never got mysterious stains from make-up or wine or other things Lance didn't touch, and they were never stretched out from bodies shaped differently than his own.

It was kind of nice since it meant he rarely lost clothing, or had to get lipstick out of his hoodies, but for the first year, it was definitely a bit of a lonely reminder of how far away from home he was.

His first year, he'd had to change roommates twice because Lance slipped up and accidentally borrowed their stuff multiple times without asking permission. He'd gotten better about _not_ doing that after the second roommate change. But years later, Lance would still find random pens and things stuffed in his pockets from cases of accidental kleptomania.

Hunk had been his most understanding friend when it came to Lance's accidental clothing stealing, and would often leave his big, cozy sweaters with Lance to wear on days when he knew Lance was trying to hide his homesickness, which plagued him even years later.

Once Voltron is formed, Lance kind of forgets to keep an eye on his little bad habit. In his defence, unexpectedly becoming a defender of the universe was a pretty good reason to accidentally start stealing clothing again, Lance figures.

The funny thing is though, it's only Shiro's things Lance steals.

For obvious and very different reasons Lance's subconscious doesn't latch on to any of Allura's or Coran's things. (Allura because she'd probably throw Lance out an airlock if he tried and Coran because he'd probably give him an enthusiastic speech about friendship and comradery and Lance still wasn't entirely sure his brand of crazy wasn't contagious via contact with personal belongings).

Keith never left things laying around for Lance to accidentally borrow, always keeping all of his belongings in his own room and never allowing anyone inside. Lance sometimes wonders what the inside of his room looks like and guesses it's either a) painfully, military neat with zero personality or b) a complete disaster with stuff thrown everywhere and his bed a literal nest of clothing. As entertaining as the second option is, Lance has a sinking suspicion that it's the first.

Pidge, on the other hand, Lance had no idea why his brain didn't ever latch onto their clothing. Especially since they were notorious for absentmindedly leaving a trail of discarded shoes, socks, sweaters, scarves, and technological detritus in their wake whenever they were lost in thought or in the middle of a project. Lance figures it must be because a) Pidge is too small for Lance to conceivably borrow anything from and b) also looks the youngest of them all and Lance would feel a little bad about accidentally stealing things from them and c) kicks mega hard and could probably break Lance's shins if they were pissed off enough with Lance.

Shockingly enough, Hunk is also spared Lance's usual magpie ways. It takes him a while to figure out why, but it makes sense in the end. At the academy, Hunk had always worn cozy sweaters that could swallow Lance whole, or sweet knitted scarves Hunk's mom mailed on a near-monthly basis, bimonthly in the winder. In space, half of Hunk's clothing is constantly covered in oil and grime from the endless repairs he does on the lions and the castle itself, not to mention the sweat from the training the paladins do together. Lance is seriously glad his subconscious is nice enough to not make him steal Hunks's gross space laundry.

But Shiro. Poor, poor Shiro. A few months into their tenure as defenders of the universe, Lance realizes he's sort of been stealing every article of clothing that belongs to Shiro that he can get his hands on. And not giving them back. Ever. Whoops.

This realization comes in two parts.

The first comes one morning, while everyone's at breakfast. Shiro shows up, wearing a shirt that is so sinfully tight, Lance is pretty sure moving his arms in any way would cause the thing to burst, hulk style. Lance has to bit his own tongue to stop himself from asking Shiro to do a push-up contest or something. For science, of course.

Lance is sort of a bad person. But no court could find him guilty in this instance. Shiro's biceps had to be somehow illegal.

"Pidge, is there anything weird going on with the laundry bots?" Shiro asks, ears going red when everyone turns to stare at him. Or, more specifically, the region between his hips and chin.

"I haven't noticed anything unusual," Pidge says, eyebrows raised. "Why?"

"A lot of my clothing's gone missing, I thought maybe the laundry bots were forgetting to give it back after washing them," Shiro explains. "Thanks for loaning me a shirt," he adds to Keith, who shrugs, but is a little pink around the edges.

Lance realizes that this means the painted on shirt Shiro is wearing belongs to Keith. He's hit by the simultaneous feelings of 'that is adorable' and jealousy. He wants Shiro to be wearing _his_ shirt, even if it would probably be even smaller on Shiro, to the point of discomfort.

Shaking his head at his increasingly weird thoughts, he goes back to eating their breakfast space goo. It's pink instead of green and tastes like what Lance imagines the baby between a lemon and a bag of cinnamon would taste like. It's not the worst thing he's ever put in his mouth, anyways.

The second part comes after breakfast, when Lance goes back to his room to change into more training appropriate clothing and realizes that he's wearing a shirt that is probably not his own, given how baggy it is. Also, his room contains a lot more clothing than it ought to. All of his drawers are stuffed to bursting with clothing, and there's still sweaters and shirts strewn all across the room and draped across every piece of furniture. His bed has no less than four sweaters on it, all black, and none of which belong to Lance.

"Well, shit," Lance says.

* * *

Operation Return Shiro's Stuff Without Being Caught begins well enough. Lance realizes that suddenly having all of his clothing magically reappear in his room would probably make Shiro more suspicious, not less, so he starts leaving Shiro's stuff in the laundry room, just a few things at a time. Shiro stops wearing Keith's clothing which is both a relief and a travesty- on the one hand Lance stops walking into walls, doors, and people accidentally, but Shiro is wearing normal sized shirts. Ones that fit. It's terrible.

When Lance is about halfway through his plan, the paladins are sent plantside for a mission. The planet is uninhabited, supposedly, but a bunch of old Galra tech supposedly crash landed a few years back, and Allura and Pidge figure they might be able to get valuable information from them. They're sent out in pairs to scour the planet, but the sensors are mildly inaccurate, meaning the paladins have to get out and search on foot once a general location is found.

It's a jungle planet with millions of teeny tiny volcano things that shot flames, superficially like the fire swamp in _The Princess Bride_. Hunk and Lance had shot quotes back and forth nonstop until Pidge had snapped _shut up, you warthog faced buffoons!_ Hunk and Lance had been shocked into silence for the rest of the trip down.

After only minutes planetside, Keith and Lance had given in and stripped the tops of their armour off in vain attempts to avoid overheating. Despite this, Lance notices that Keith doesn't take off his giant black sweater, like the dumbass he was.

Lance and Keith find some of the galra tech with only mild squabbles erupting before Keith catches on fire.

Later, Lance swears it's Keith's own fault, and that _Lance_ hadn't known the tiny volcano was about to erupt when he'd elbowed Keith towards it it. Lance had just been trying to wipe that irritating smirk off his face, not set him on fire.

When it happens, Keith, like the dumb mullethead he is, simply stands there and looks shocked to find himself on fire and does nothing, like he's never heard of the phrase _stop, drop and roll_ or something _._

Lance tackles him to the ground and forcibly smothers him into the dirt until he's no longer on fire, ignoring the flailing limbs Keith tries to hit him with.

"Are you an idiot?!" Lance shouts, internally marvelling at the fact that it's him shouting that at someone else, not him being yelled at by Allura or one of the other paladins. It's a truly glorious feeling. No wonder someone yells it at him on a near daily basis.

Keith doesn't respond, just picks at his now ruined sweater mournfully. Keith had managed not to get more than a little singed, but his sweater was completely unsalvageable, nearly falling off of him in sad chunks of charred wool.

"Are you okay?" Lance asks, feeling a little flat footed. Normally shouting at Keith resulted in being shouted at back. But Keith just sits there and stares at his ruined sweater in what Lance can only assume is sadness.

Only. Lance recognizes that sweater. It looks almost identical to one that he sneakily left in the laundry room three days previously. That's _Shiro's_.

"Dude, why are you wearing Shiro's sweater?!" Lance blurts out before he can stop himself. "Did you steal it?"

Keith turns a dull red and glowers at Lance.

"This is mine. Shiro lent it to me," Keith mutters, not meeting Lance's gaze. After a pause, he begrudgingly adds. "Before he went on the Kerberos mission."

"Dude, that was like two years ago," Lance replies. "Why didn't you give it back?"

Keith's eyes narrow. "How did you realize it's Shiro's? It's just an ordinary black sweater," he demands instead of answering Lance's very legitimate question.

"Uh. You know. It just looks like a Shiro-y sweater. Because it's black. And uh. Big. Yeah."

Lance is shockingly bad at lying. Unsurprisingly, Keith doesn't seem terribly convinced.

"You're the one who was taking Shiro's clothing!" He accuses, pointing a finger at Lance.

"You stole his sweater first!" Lance snaps, a little shrilly, and slaps the accusatory finger away.

"It was only one sweater! You stole all of his clothing! He had to borrow my shirts!" Keith replies.

"You know, I'm really not seeing the downside there," Lance says, eyes going distant in fond memory. "Besides it was an accident. And I'm giving them back."

"How do you _accidentally_ steal clothing?" Keith asks. But he doesn't look like he's blaming Lance. In fact he looks... jealous? Why would Keith be jealous of Lance's mildly embarrassing accidental stealing of Shiro's- _oh._

"Do you want to borrow one of Shiro's sweaters?" Lance blurts. "I haven't given back all his stuff yet. He's got a lot of clothing. So it's no big deal."

Keith frowns at him, but then says slowly. "I'd only be borrowing it."

"Yeah. It's just borrowing," Lance agrees, purposefully not thinking about how he still has approximate a quarter of Shiro's clothing in his room. He's just trying to give them back stealthily, that's all. Yup that is the only reason he still finds himself cuddling up with Shiro's sweaters.

Keith and Lance exchange a speaking look. This is totally more than borrowing. Frankly, it's kinda might be a little weird. Well, it really, really is weird. But if one doesn't say anything, the other isn't either.

They complete the mission more or less smoothly, the only snag being when they discover the planet actually isn't uninhabited and the locals are _pissed_ about their visitors and think they're avatars of their death god, and Lance is nearly sacrificed on a ceremonial bonfire and Keith has to marry one of their priests to appease their gods. So nothing terribly unusual. It's the third time that month Keith has had to marry someone. Lance has all of the paladins beat, having married no less than thirteen alien individuals of various genders. So far, the paladins have been lucky and all of the marriages had been performed with both parties knowing it would be entirely symbolic. Lance still feels bad for the single alien Shiro had ever married for the sake of a mission. They had looked so sad when Shiro had left with the other paladins. _Me too, purple alien pal_ , Lance had thought at the time _, me to._

Back at the castle, Lance covertly gives Keith one of Shiro's sweaters. Keith glances into Lance's room and eyes the neat stack of clothing Lance has piled against one wall, a stark contrast to the rest of the disaster of a room. Keith doesn't say anything and hugs the sweater to his chest. As he turns away, Lance swears he sees Keith push his face into the folds of the sweater for a moment.

Lance has to be seeing things. Because that can't have happened, right? That is just to darn adorable to have happened.

* * *

"You know, you aren't that terrible," Lance slurs, flinging an arm across Keith's shoulders. Keith sways a little and then leans into Lance's side.

All of the paladins had been enjoying the space alcohol they'd been given by some very appreciative aliens as a gift for saving them from the Galra ships attacking them, but it had been a long day, and one by one, they'd left the common room. Only Keith and Lance were left, the bottle of mysterious alcohol between them. Lance would mourn it's near emptiness, but given how the room is swaying, Lance is pretty sure he's had more than enough.

Keith has definitely had _way_ more than enough. Drunk Keith was a lot more fun tha normal Keith, though there wasn't too much of a difference. Drunk Keith was pretty quiet, he'd sit quietly and listen rather than talk, but would practically purr at any sign of physical affection, and would smile rather than smirk at Lance, even when Lance started busting out his worst pick up lines around shot number three in an attempt to make Allura crack a smile. She'd finally broken into reluctant giggles when Lance had said _Are you wearing moon pants, because you're out of this world_ and had wriggled his eyebrows at her. Keith had spat out a mouthful of space alcohol all over himself and had had to put his head between his knees to get his breath back.

Lance is mid-story, with Keith a welcome warmth against his side, when he yawns widely for what has to be the fifth time in as many minutes, and has to admit defeat.

"Alright, time for bed for me," Lance says, and starts to stand up, slowly, mindful of how much of that mysterious alien booze is now inside him.

"No," Keith says and roughly yanks him back down by the belt.

"Uh," Lance says, more than a little startled. Keith has all but climbed into his lap by this point and kind of looks like an angry cat on the verge of hissing. "Sorry dude, I'm ready for bed, I'm about to fall asleep on you here. Did you need something?"

Keith sighs, like Lance is the worst person he's ever had to deal with, which is patently untrue given how many galra forces they've met in person along with Pidge in the very early morning after a late night session of defending the universe.

"Fine," Keith mutters, eyes downcast. "It was stupid anyways."

He sounds like a grumpy toddler. A grumpy, mighty sloshed toddler. It's adorable. Lance barely stops himself from clutching at his own chest.

"It's cool, you can tell me," Lance assures him and rubs his back lightly. "I swear I'll only make fun of you if you need me to get something off a high shelf for you."

"You're only half an inch taller than me!" Keith snaps, but it's clearly automatic. "I just. I just don't want to be alone. That's all. Go to bed."

Lance does not, in fact, go to bed after that little heart wrenching bomb has been dropped. He stays right where he is and settles back into the couch so Keith's boney knees stop stabbing him in the thigh so hard.

"Nightmares?" Lance asks, since he knows all of them are dealing with at least a few. Being part of Voltron is the most fulfilling thing Lance has ever done. That doesn't mean that some of the horrible things he's seen while in space don't haunt him.

"No. Not now anyways," Keith says with a deep sigh. "I just... don't like being alone much, is all."

"Didn't you like spend a year in the desert by yourself in your crazy person conspiracy hut?" Lance asks, tilting his head in confusion. _I probably could have phrased that better_ , he thinks when Keith shoves away from him, scowling.

"That's _why_ ," he mutters, mostly under his breath.

Yikes, way to break Lance's heart.

"Right. Sleepover time!" Lance declares and gets to his feet, dragging Keith to his room without leaving him room to protest.

They end up on Lance's bed, slumped together, draining the last of the bottle. One of Shiro's shirts has escaped the orderly and very slowly dwindling pile, and is draped across the head of Lance's bed. He has no idea how that happened. Nope. None. He totally didn't have a terrible awful nightmare about Zarkon and his witch lady ripping Shiro out of his lion because Lance couldn't get there fast enough. He totally didn't have to stop himself from waking Shiro up in the arbitrarily designated night-time in the space castle ship and then cuddle up with a Shiro-smelling shirt to remind himself that Shiro was alive and totally fine and like four doors down from his room. Lance has no clue how that shirt came to be on his bed, for serious.

"We should steal more of his clothing," Keith mumbles, eyes on the stack of Shiro's clothing.

"It would be his own fault for being so damn attractive," Lance agrees. "And he'd wear your clothing again."

"Maybe he just won't wear any," Keith says and then starts giggling like a child and it is the most adorable thing Lance has ever seen, Lance gives in and literally clutches at his chest.

 _Oh no_ , he thinks.

* * *

They had fallen asleep in Lance's bed, curled around each other innocently, like sleepy little kids at their first sleepover.

Lance wakes up to Keith's sleepy-soft face about three inches away from his own- eyes open, but breathing slow and deep like he was still sleeping and expression the most relaxed Lance has ever seen it. The room feels almost fragile in the early hours, and Lance can't bring himself to say anything and ruin it like he always seems to, usually by saying the completely wrong thing all the time. So he stays quiet.

"Hey," Keith says softly. He smiles slowly. His eyelashes look shockingly dark against his skin.

"Hey," Lance replies, equally soft.

It's not really a conscious decision on either of their parts. One moment they're just laying there, breathing in sync, eyes half open, the next moment they were kissing. It's soft and slow like everything else about that morning and when they part, Lance can't hold back a disgustingly soppy sigh of contentment. Luckily, going by Keith's face, it's a mutual feeling.

Things change after that, but a lot less than Lance would have thought. They still squabble over the dumbest shit, but now halfway through Lance's eyes will always meet Keith's and it will suddenly be the hardest thing not to either burst out laughing at how stupid they both are, or to grab Keith by his dumb 90's anime mullet and make out with him.

The biggest difference is when Keith will trail after Lance to his room after they've cleaned up from a mission. They usually end up laying on Lance's bed, sometimes making out, but often making out and _then_ talking. Mostly about Shiro. Lance isn't really sure how that keeps happening, but it does.

"He's just so damn pretty!" He all but wails one night.

"I know, right?" Keith replies, just as seriously.

Neither of them are drunk, but it was a long, brutal couple of days dealing with space witches and Zarkon fuckery so Lance is left feeling almost inebriated from the lack of sleep and the aftermath of a surplus of adrenaline.

"I just like want to like- climb him like a tree sometimes," Lance says, and then feels kinda embarrassed. It's one thing to say he thought Shiro was attractive- literally everyone in the universe up to and _probably including_ Zarkon (probably) thought that- but it's another to say he wanted to like _do things_ to Shiro when Lance's tongue had been in Keith's mouth less than two minutes previously.

Luckily, Keith doesn't seem to take offence. In fact, he replies, "Honestly I sometimes zone out when he's talking about teamwork or something since he always runs his hands through his hair and it's... distracting."

Hoo boy does Lance know what Keith means by _distracting._

Lance somehow ends up on a tangent about how lickable Shiro's dumb, muscle-y torso is, and at some point his eyes meet with Keith's and they end up make out. Like a lot. Like Lance is now a proud owner of a hickey on his neck that his paladin armour is never going to be able to cover.

Frankly, Lance knows he should probably find it weird that the hottest thing to ever happen between him and Keith comes after they were talking about how sexy another person is, but honestly? Lance fights in a giant space robot cat. This is a lot less weird than that.

What is weird is the part where it keeps happening. Like a lot. Lance has no idea how it does, but one moment he's folding up more of Shiro's clothing to sneak back, or wrestling with Keith over something stupid or telling a joke even he thinks is lame and the next thing he knows, either he or Keith is grumbling about how attractive Shiro is and then they're making out.

Lance feels like he should be more alarmed by this turn of events than he is, but he really can't bring himself to regret anything. Because it's all harmless, sey fun, really.

Until it isn't.

* * *

The funny thing is, Lance and Keith weren't really fooling around when Shiro catches them. They were wrestling on Lance's bed, which for them is like 50% actual trying to pin each other and 50% flirting.

"Hey Lance, I need-" Shiro says, opening the door without knocking or anything.

The single thing Lance's panicked mind manages when Shiro's eyes land on the pair of them is, _how fucking rude, were you born in a barn, dude?_ Followed by internal screaming. A lot of the second one.

"Is that my shirt?" Shiro demands, eyeing the shirt Lance has mostly pushed up Keith's chest. "And my... pants?" he adds when Keith all but rips his hands off of Lance's hips.

"Uh," Keith says.

"Shit," Lance says.

"It's not what it looks like?" Keith tries, without conviction.

"That the two of you are the reason my clothing keeps going missing?" Shiro asks, voice bone dry.

"It's exactly what it looks like," Lance announces, because reality is much more awkward than what Shiro had just said.

Conveniently, the castle's alarm goes off.

"God bless Zarkon!" Lance shouts and leaps off the bed, nearly kneeing Keith in the junk in his haste to escape the fuck out of there.

"Don't think this is over!" Shiro snaps, stabbing a warning finger at them, and then leaves the room at a sprint.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: This was written before Season 2 came out, so no spoilers here

It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission. Find the problem, kick Galra ass, save the day. They've done it a hundred times, they work well as a team.

It does not go the way it's supposed to.

The distress signal was fakes. Shiro was tricked into getting out of his lion, and then realized his mistake and sent the paladins to protect the black lion.

But the lion hadn't been the target.

Shiro had been.

* * *

"Guys- get out of here, there's a bomb!" Shiro shouts into the comms. "I'm coming back, just-" Shiro's voice was cut off abruptly by a pained gasp and then his comm went silent.

"Shiro!" Pidge shouted, but got no response. The computers indicated that Shiro's helmet was still working, so if he wasn't responding then- then he was injured that was the only option.

"Keith, get down there immediately!" Allura commands, her voice sturdy and sure, but with the tiniest hint of fear in her voice.

"There's like a hundred ships down here!" Keith shouts. Shiro has to have been taken into one of them, but there's no way to tell which one. He wishes all he had to do was just blow them all up. That was so much easier and _didn't involve Shiro being kidnapped._

"I'm working on it!" Pidge yells back, sounding frantic. "I just need to triangulate the signal from his helmet."

"Hurry Pidge! They've opened a wormhole!" Coran shouts from the background.

"Lance, try and stop anyone from going through!" Allura orders. A second later, the blue lion streaks past Keith towards the wormhole and tackles the ship that was about to go through it.

"Be careful!" Keith snaps, fear making him short tempered. "Shiro could be in anyone of them."

"Hunk, help me out, I can't stop all of them!" Lance says, knocking another two ships aside, but misses one that slips through while he's occupied.

"Lance that could have been him!" Keith snarls and brings Red closer to the ground, hoping to god that he'll see Shiro laying on the ground somewhere, having been accidentally knocked out or something. There was rubble and trashed ships everywhere, but no Shiro. A small part of him recognized it was hopeless, but he kept looking anyways.

"I'm trying!" Lance snarls back just as Pidge shouts, "I've got it!" A beat. "Lance! He's in the one heading to the wormhole right now!"

Keith watched in horror as the Blue lion turned on a dime and rocketed towards a lone ship nearly at the wormhole. Four ships slammed into Lance's lion, sending him flying backwards. Hunk was right behind him, nearly at the wormhole, both arms of the lion outstretched and- the wormhole closed.

Shiro was gone.

* * *

The paladins all came back to the castle in complete silence. They exit their lions, unable to look at the place where the black lion should be, but isn't and averting their eyes.

Without discussion, they all meet up at the bridge.

Coran and Allura are waiting, equally silent. For all that her voice had been commanding and uncompromising, her eyes are red rimmed and Lance spots marks on the palms of her hands from where her nails had dug in. Coran is the least exuberant any of them have ever seen him, and it only makes reality hit home harder.

The six of them stood in a rough circle, eyeing each other up, no one willing to be the first to speak.

Finally, Keith can't stand it anymore, the rage boiling under his skin to the point it was unbearable. He whirls on Lance and grabs him by the collar, slamming him into the wall.

"You should have saved him!" He shouts, but means _I should have saved him_.

"I was trying! What more did you want me to do?" Lance yells back, but also means _I should have saved him._

"Keith!" Pidge shouts, the same words _I should have saved him_ echoing through their mind.

"Come on, man," Hunk says, laying a hand on Keith's shoulder gently. "There was nothing Lance could have done." The words are different but the meaning is the same: _this is my fault, I should have been faster._

"All of you calm down!" Allura shouts, slamming a fist into one of the consoles. The sound shocks the four of them into falling silent. "We are going to find Shiro," she said, without room for compromise in her voice. "So stop fighting and get to work."

They all look at each other in silence. And then they get to work.

* * *

The problem is, there isn't a whole lot a guy like Keith can do at that point.

Pidge buries themself in data and computer programming, asking Allura questions about how the castle's systems worked, faster than she could answer. Hunk took apart every salvaged Galra ship they could find in an attempt to pry every last scrap of knowledge from them. Lance is tasked with hunting down every single contact they have to see if they have any information on Shiro or the Galra troops movements.

Keith doesn't understand a quart er of the things Pidge spouts when anyone gets too close, he knows how to fly ships not build them and he is so angry and short tempered from the entire situation that the only time he tries to help Lance they nearly start an intergalactic war. Again.

So he trains and trains and destroys an uncountable number of battle droids and still feels so angry and helpless that he just wants to set the entire multiverse on fire until they find Shiro.

Shockingly enough, it's _Coran_ of all people that has to be the voice of reason, dragging Pidge away from computers, Hunk out of the trashed Galra ships, Lance off of alien planets and back into the castle, Keith away from the training room and forcing Allura to sleep.

"You'll do Shiro no good if you're so exhausted you collapse," he tells them, glowering down at how exhausted the entire lot of them were. Even his moustache is disapproving.

Begrudgingly, they all go to their rooms to rest.

Keith trails after Lance. They hadn't spoken since he'd yelled at Lance.

Lance doesn't even give him more than a single side-eyed look and lets him into his room.

They regard each other, measuring each other up. They both looked like crap. Neither of them could remember the last time they'd slept more than four hours at a time.

"I should have been faster," Lance finally says, his voice leaden.

"I should have realized they were after Shiro not the lion," Keith says.

Neither of them say _I'm sorry_ , but they both hear it nonetheless.

"We're getting him back," Keith says. It isn't a question.

"Of course," Lance agrees.

They each take one of Shiro's sweaters and lay down on Lance's bed, side by side, eyes staring into each other's eyes until they both fall asleep.

Four hours later, all six of the castle's occupants are back at work.

* * *

Of all of them it's Pidge that enemies have to be afraid of the most. Keith and Lance are persistent, Hunk loyal to a fault, Coran deceptively crafty, and Allura savvy enough to outsmart anyone, but it's Pidge who tackles problems like they're Gordian knots and all they have to solve them is a sword.

Three weeks after Shiro has been taken, Pidge finds the signal from Shiro's helmet. Hunk finds a fatal flaw in the Galra ships that they can exploit. Lance hears a rumor of a Galra ship holding a new prisoner, one who'd nearly escaped three times.

Allura makes a plan.

They get to work.

* * *

Obviously, as all plans do, things don't go as anticipated and there are several complications and even more close calls.

None of the paladins care.

They have Shiro back. He's alive. Malnourished, injured, but alive.

Coran tucks him into a healing pod carefully, and then doesn't even try to herd everyone to bed, just brings cushions and blankets out to them, knowing that none of them will agree to let Shiro out of their sight.

* * *

Shiro is fine. Lance knows this. He literally helped transport him from planet to a healing pod. He even saw Shiro stumble from the pod to his room, at the behest of literally every person in the castle, despite being pod-bound negating any real need for extra rest. No had cared, Shiro had been kindly and gently told to get the fuck in his bed and to stay there. Being an excellent leader, Shiro had known when to admit defeat and had gone willingly.

So, seriously, Lance is well aware of the fact that Shiro is fine.

He just can't convince his brain that.

Every time he's about to drift off, he'll remember something- the pained gasp, the sinking feeling of Shiro's comm going silent, the faint static crackle of being out of range of the castle and the other paladins- so around 3 AM Lance gives up and rolls his exhausted ass out of bed. He's already wearing a Shiro-sweater along with his pajamas, but drapes a blanket across his shoulders since the castle gets chilly at night.

He'd just go and check on Shiro real quick. In a totally non-invasive, totally not creepy way. Just a dude making sure aliens hadn't somehow snuck onto the giant flying castle he lived on and kidnapped someone just to fuck with Lance's already stressed out brain.

Keith is standing right outside of Shiro's room, like a creep. Much like the creep Lance feels like for also being out of bed outside Shiro's room in the middle of the night.

Keith is wearing what Lance knows are Shiro's sweatpants and a sweater identical to the first one he stole on earth. Hah, hypocrite. Lance totally has the moral high ground, he's only wearing one thing of Shiro's.

"He's fine," Keith whispers when Lance raises an eyebrow at him.

"Obviously," Lance replies airily, like he totally wasn't also a little tiny bit enormously worried. "He's in the castle, he can't get hurt here."

They both look at each other silently. As one, they sit down on the floor right next to the door. Keith presses into Lance's side and Lance lifts up one arm to allow Keith to get under the blanket.

There's no way they'll be able to sleep there in the hallway- it's uncomfortably cool, not to mention how creepy the hallway is at night, even with Keith next to him. But maybe if not sleep, Lance can at least find... peace of some kind.

This late, the ship is utterly silent, the machinery of its systems too efficient and too far away to be heard. All Lance can hear the sound of his own breath, and Keith's. But if he listens very, very carefully, he can hear faint sounds coming from Shiro's room- slow, deep breaths, occasional low snores, the creaking of bedsprings as Shiro rolls over or shifts in his sleep.

It's hours later when Keith's watch beeps softly, startling him.

"Hey, wake up," he says, elbowing Lance gently.

"'m awake," Lance mumbles and squints at Keith blearily. "Does that alarm mean it's morning?"

"Close enough," Keith says. "Normally I'd get up now to train, but we have three hours until breakfast. I'm going back to my room in case Shiro gets up."

"You get up three hours earlier than you have to?" Lance demands (quietly, so Shiro doesn't catch them being extra creepy and stalkerish). "You monster. That is the worst thing I've ever heard in my life," he adds, and then drags Keith back to his room to attempt to nap before they have to actually be up- which is half an hour after breakfast is supposed to start, like any sane person would know.

* * *

The whole, not sleeping and lurking outside Shiro's room with Keith thing sort of just keeps happening. It's like the accidental clothing theft thing only with Lance fully aware of it happening and how weird and creepy it is. So, basically nothing like the accidental clothing theft.

It's not _every_ night, which is what Lance constantly reminds himself in an attempt to not feel like a stalker. Just most nights. Which is why Lance feels like a stalker anyways.

Keith always joins him, like he has Lance-is-awake-too powers or something. Lance would ask how he always knew, but worried the answer was that Keith couldn't sleep any of the nights- including the few Lance did sleep properly, and he didn't want to deal with that. He was dealing with perpetual exhaustion while training to be a defender of the universe, that was more than enough stress for one man.

That night, without question, they both show up outside Shiro's door. Lance didn't even bother trying to sleep, just changed into sweatpants- his own, which actually fit but now feel too small after wearing Shiro's all the time.

They don't say anything, just sit down, side by side in silent vigil, a blanket thrown across their laps.

After a few hours, Lance doesn't sleep, but his eyes close and he falls into what is almost meditation, focused on three sets of breathing slowly syncing up. He's zoned out so deeply, hat he nearly jumps out of his skin when Shiro's door opens. Next to him, Keith jerks as if shocked, dragging the blanket off of both of them.

"Lance?" Shiro stifles an undignified yelp of surprise. His eyes land on Keith next to Lance, and his eyebrows creep up even further. "And Keith?"

Lance quickly jerks the blanket up to mostly cover the fact that they're both wearing stolen clothing. Again.

"What are you doing up?" Keith demands before Shiro can say anything else. "You should be sleeping."

"I could say the same about the two of you," Shiro replies, eyeing them sternly and crosses his arms. Even dead tired, the sight of Shiro's beautiful biceps still sends a thrill through Lance.

"Couldn't sleep," Lance replies airily, like he just happened to pick the spot right next to Shiro's door by happenstance.

Shiro frowns a little, but only says, "Me too. I think the pod messed with my internal clock, I keep getting tired in the afternoon and waking up at night."

"You should be in bed," Keith says stubbornly.

"I'm _fine_ ," Shiro says, half exasperated, half fond. On the one hand, Land figures Shiro might be right to be irritated and that the entire castle is overreacting and Shiro's been out of the pod for weeks now. But on the _other_ hand, he wants to shove Shiro back into his bed and smother him in blankets.

On the other other hand, it suddenly occurs to Lance that this is the first time the three of them have really interacted ever since they rescued Shiro. It also occurs to him that they have been once again been caught doing something weird and invasive and without Shiro's knowledge or consent and _yikes_.

"You know what, I'm actually suddenly tired!" Lance exclaims, leaping to his feet and yanking the blanket along with him and hustling back down to his own room.

Keith looks from Lance to Shiro and back and obviously comes to the same conclusion as Lance and doesn't even bother with muttering a flimsy excuse before taking off after Lance.

Shiro stares after them, feeling an odd mixture of touched and annoyed. It's a common feeling when dealing with Lance and Keith.

He sighs and heads for the training room.

* * *

If asked, Keith would deny that he's avoiding Shiro. It's just that he has very important training to do. The whole fiasco with Shiro being kidnapped has made training extra important.

It has nothing to do with Lance reminding him of the clothing disaster. Keith was both horrified and amazed that he had managed to forget about it.

It goes like this:

"So, I was thinking," Lance says one night while they're huddled outside Shiro's room, both unable to sleep.

"That's never a good sign," Keith can't help but say since Lance was basically _asking_ for it, and lazily leans out of the way of Lance's equally lazy retaliatory punch. They're both exceptionally tired.

" _I was thinking_ that we should probably just give Shiro back all of his stuff now since he already knows it was us who stole them," Lance continues.

Keith abruptly remembers the little fact that one time (okay a bunch of times) he and Lance stole nearly all of Shiro's clothing. If he wasn't already seated on the floor, he'd need to sit down.

"Crap," he says, to sum all that he's feeling up.

"Yeah," Lance replies, sounding the same.

So, the next day while Shiro's eating breakfast and Keith is lurking outside he kitchen to keep watch, Lance dumps all of the remaining stolen clothing (washed and folded) on Shiro's bed and then books it before he gets caught by Shiro or worse, Hunk and Pidge and _has to explain what he's doing_.

Keith finds him later in a closet hiding behind several crates of... something space related, probably.

"It's done," Lance reports

"Good. Now things can go back to normal," Keith says, like a man who was not aware of the fact that he was currently living in a flying castle in space.

* * *

Things did not, in fact, go back to normal.

Lance wakes up a few mornings later and goes to grab a change of clothing, only to discover that he does not have any clothing to change into. His closet and all of his drawers are empty. Even his sweet lion slippers are missing.

Down the hall, Keith was coming back from the training room anticipating grabbing a change of clothing to take to the bathroom but soon discovered that he also was lacking in clothing.

Keith marches his towel clad ass down to Lance's room.

"Lance, give me back my pants!" Keith calls through the door, more fond than exasperated, though he kind of wanted to be wearing clothing that wasn't made of terrycloth and didn't require him to hold it up with one hand.

Lance opens the door and waggles his eyebrows at his unexpectedly undressed visitor.

"I mean, why would I go and do that?" Lance asks and leans on the doorframe with a leer that is only 50% bullshit. Shiro he might have wanted to climb like a tree, but Keith's endless hours of training certainly had their benefits. Maybe he ought to reconsider his stance on restraining his clothing kleptomania. That boy was _fine_. Lance almost felt like he needed to send Zarkon a thank you card for inspiring such dedicated training that had produced Keith's perfect shoulders. Except for the part where Zarkon is the reason Shiro go kidnapped, so Lance would probably want to like send him a letter bomb first or something. And then thank his corpse for inspiring Keith's slightly really obsessive training regimen.

Lance kind of thinks he's been in space too long. Thoughts like that were starting to sound a little too sane for his liking. And last week he'd caught Hunk talking to one of the ships he was taking apart. Not cursing at it or muttering to himself. Honest to god having a conversation with it. Lance thinks somehow that has to be a little not normal.

"Cut the bullshit and give me my pants," Keith replies irritably, though he turned a little red at the look Lance was giving him. "This castle is drafty."

"See I would, but I am also lacking pants," Lance says, gesturing behind him at his barren closet and equally empty dresser.

"Gosh, I wonder how that happened?" Shiro asks from behind Keith. His arms were crossed and his face completely impassive.

"Did we apologize for stealing all of your clothes?" Lance asks with a tiny unintended nervous laugh. "Because we probably should have done that."

"Yes," Shiro says, giving nothing away. And then gives Lance a small aneurism by continuing, "You should have."

"We are very sorry," Keith says when it looks like Lance is too busy wishing the floor would open up under him and isn't yet capable of speech.

Shiro stares at them seriously without saying anything and Keith starts to long for death a tiny bit.

Then Shiro's lips twitch and he bursts into laughter.

"You should have seen your faces!"

Keith and Lance exchange identical looks of relief mixed with lingering all-consuming horror.

"You _dick_ ," Lance says with feeling and then ends up giggling helplessly and only a little hysterically.

"Why would you do that?" Keith demands and then sits down on Lance's bed like his legs have given out on him, which is only because they kind of have. He thinks they might have actually gone numb with relief. He hadn't known that was a thing that could happen and yet there he was. Slumped on Lance's bed feeling like he'd just jumped out of Red to punch a Galra soldier in the face. Again.

"Think of it as payback for stealing all of my clothing and also for sitting outside of my room while I was trying to sleep for multiple weeks," Shiro said, sounding amused. "And after I already caught you doing it."

Both Lance and Keith think _shit_ , and exchange another look.

"We are also very sorry about that. Can we have our clothes back now? Uh, please?" Lance asks. Keith might only be in a towel, but hanging around in his pjs is also a little awkward.

"I mean," Shiro says, starting to go a little red. "If you want. But it's not like I minded you guys wearing my clothing."

"What," Keith says flatly. Lance has never experienced a real life spit take, but if he'd been drinking it he would have spat it out. He in fact feels it so strongly he almost wants to go find a glass of water he could take a sip of just to spit it out because _what_.

"I mean, I didn't appreciate not having any clothing left," Shiro continued easily. "Which I hope you both get now."

Keith did in fact sincerely and wholeheartedly understand the desire to not be completely lacking clothing in an exceptionally drafty space castle.

"So, what you're saying is… You don't mind us borrowing your clothes?" Lance asks slowly, feeling like he might have missed like eight clues somewhere along the line.

"Lance," Shiro says, both eyebrows raised. "Did you think you were being subtle?"

Well, yes, Lance really had. He was the epitome of stealth. Except when he wasn't. But that was totally always super much on purpose.

"The staring was kind of obvious," Shiro continued, sounding both a little flattered and embarrassed.

"Right. Well. Does that mean we're going to make out now?" Keith asks. "Because either way, I'd like some pants now."

Lance looks at Shiro. Shiro snorts and says, "I didn't actually take your clothing, I just put them under your bed."

Lance blinks. "Why did I not look there?" He asks and digs out a pair of pants for Keith. And then thinks _fuck it_ and kisses Shiro while Keith is putting clothing on.

"So, what should- you are making out," Keith says as he turns around. "That is a thing that is happening."

Lance gives him a thumbs up.

Shiro gently pushes Lance back. "So, no more sitting outside my room while I'm sleeping," he says sternly.

"Right," Lance says, looking away.

"Just come in, if you're that worried about me," Shiro continues.

" _Oh_ ," Lance says and then hugs the shit out of Shiro and hauls Keith in too with his free hand. He smushes his face into Shiro's shoulder, and can hear them kissing over his head.

Life is _super_.

* * *

"Oh my god!" Lance says and sits bolt upright, batting Keith's and Shiro's hands off of him. He's wearing one of Shiro's sweaters again. Keith has Shiro's sweater, a shirt and a pair of his sweatpants on because he has no shame. Shiro is only wearing pants. Lance approves heartily.

Keith and Shiro exchange concerned looks.

"No one made the 'that sweater would look better on my floor' joke," Lance says. "How could all of us have missed that opportunity? This is the worst."

"No, _you're_ the worst," Keith says and drags him back down.

"Don't worry," Shiro tells Lance with a smile. "We have time."


End file.
